I went to dinner with Mom tonight and she ordered salmon. It sounded good and it looked good until she got to the thicker part and discovered it was undercooked. No big deal, she put it to the side, told the waiter when he came back to the table, he brought her another (fully-cooked) piece of salmon and gave me a slice of pie for free. (He offered one to Mom, but she didn’t want the extra calories.)
It made me think about all the times when people absolutely explode over something that isn’t that important. Your food sucks? Don’t throw a temper tantrum, just talk to waiters and they’ll try to make it better. Unless the waiter sucks, in which case you tell the manager, don’t leave a tip and then set the restaurant on fire when you leave.
A few weeks ago, I was walking into a grocery store and some guy was standing outside literally screaming into his phone. I guess he was a customer at US Bank… or at least he used to be up until that conversation. How much money do you want to bet that the other person on the phone was the one who set up the shitty policy that this guy was screaming about?
Last week, I pulled all of my money out of Wells Fargo because I had a free checking account there that was no longer going to be free starting in May. I’d made plenty of banking adjustments in the past so I wouldn’t have to pay fees: I accepted a debit card, I accepted a credit card, I started a savings account that automatically transferred $25 from checking to savings every month. Alas, they were changing their policy yet again, so my no-longer-free checking account would have cost me ten bucks a month.
I found another bank where I don’t have to pay any extra fees, so I went to Wells Fargo to close my accounts there. When I sat down at the desk to talk to someone, I asked him how many people were coming into the bank, yelling and screaming about the policy change.
“More than enough.”
Which means, of course, he was happy to charge people these new fees and didn’t care how they felt about it. He loved everyone yelling at him and didn’t mind because it was all his fault. Or maybe not.
Maybe I’m sympathetic because I worked in a call center for a while and had to deal with people screaming at me, too. I’m not the one who made the change, I can’t change it back, what am I supposed to do besides listen to you yell? When training people, the company would start by having them listen to a few calls. One morning, I had someone listening on my line. The first three calls, I had to turn and ensure him that not everyone will be yelling at him the whole time.
Some of you might be saying, “They’re stupid policies! The bank is taking people’s hard-earned money for no reason! I have the right to be pissed off!” I understand that. I’m not blaming you for being pissed off. I’m just trying to point out two things:
1) The people getting yelled at probably aren’t responsible for the reason you’re yelling, so lower your voice. It’s not going to make things better more quickly; if anything, you’re making the situation worse.
2) Some things are not worth getting upset about. It was a piece of salmon. Remember that your waiter has to face your wrath because someone else fucked up, so ask politely to get it replaced and enjoy your free slice of pie with a sense of peace and fulfillment. That’s how your stomach will feel in a couple minutes, so why not follow suit?
